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Like some heat in your tomatoes? Spicy tomatoes could soon be on the menu, thanks to advances in genetic engineering, researchers say.

Scientists say they believe it would be possible to genetically modify the tomato to make it produce capsaicinoids, the compounds that make peppers spicy.

In an article published today in the journal Trends in Plant Science, researchers from the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil said that although it could be challenging to use gene-editing techniques to make a tomato produce capsaicinoids, it is possible to do so.

The objective, however, wouldn’t be to make spicy tomatoes available in grocery stores or to start a new foodie trend (although that’s a possibility, too), but to have an easier means of mass producing large quantities of capsaicinoids for commercial purposes.

The molecules have benefits, according to Agustin Zsögön from the Federal University of Viçosa in Brazil, co-author of the article. “Capsaicinoids are very valuable compounds; they are used in [the] weapons industry for pepper spray, they are also used for anaesthetics [and] there is some research showing that they promote weight loss,” he said.

The researchers say chili peppers are difficult crops to cultivate, and it is tricky to keep the pungency of the fruits consistent, but because tomato yields are high and the plant is well-studied, it’s a good choice for creating spicy varieties. “You could produce [the capsaicinoids] in a more cost-effective manner,” Zsögön said.

Chili peppers and tomatoes share some of the same DNA — they evolved from a common ancestor, but split off about 19 million years ago. Previous gene sequencing work has shown that tomatoes have the genes necessary for capsaicinoids but don’t have the machinery to turn them on.

“In theory you could use these genes to produce capsaicinoids in the tomato,” said Zsögön. “Since we don’t have solid data about the expression patterns of the capsaicinoid pathway in the tomato fruit, we have to try alternative approaches.”

One approach is to “activate candidate genes one at a time” and to use tools like CRISPR/Cas9 so researchers can see which compounds are produced. Zsögön said researchers are already trying this and a number of approaches.

According to the study, if scientists successfully engineer a spicy tomato, it would represent an “important proof-of-concept that could be extended to the production of other valuable metabolites in tomato in the future.” Tomatoes could prove to be an important vehicle for the production of bixin, an important food and cosmetic pigment, for example, or beta-carotene, a powerful antioxidant.

Of course, a spicy tomato will also, as any arrabbiata sauce or Mexican food lover would agree, be a welcome addition to the grocery aisle or kitchen pantry.